Research progress on aging of organic pollutants in geosorbents:a review

Geosorbents are the main host of anthropogenic organic pollutants and play a vital role in their fate and transport in the natural environment.Soil and sediment are the most common and abundant geosorbents in the natural environment;their interactions with organic pollutants,especially sorption and desorption processes,have been extensively studied from the perspectives of thermodynamics and kinetics.Recently,the aging of organic pollutants in geosorbents has drawn increased attention,leading to an improved understanding of interactions between organic pollutants and geosorbents and informing remediation criteria.Aging has been deemed important in accurately assessing ecologic and health risks of organic pollutants,and both positive and negative impacts have been reported in studies of natural and artificial sorbents.This paper summarizes recent research progress on organic pollutant aging in geosorbents,including related mechanism research,influence factors,bioavailability assessments,and biological and physicochemical remediation of aged organic pollutants.We also discuss issues in the current research and bring forward suggestions for future study.

The effects of soil sand contents on characteristics of humic acids along soil profiles

It is generally accepted that the compositions and properties of soil organic matter(SOM) are in?uenced by many factors. In order to reveal the effects of soil texture on characteristics and dynamics of SOM and its sub-fraction,humic acid(HA), along two soil pro?les, a yellow soil pro?le and a purplish soil pro?le, under the same climate and vegetation conditions were determined. Results indicate that the decomposition and humi?cation degrees of SOM and HA of the purplish soils are higher than those of the corresponding yellow soils indicated by A/O–A ratios of HAs, TOCs and HA yields of bulk soil samples, nevertheless, the development degree of the purplish soil is lower than that of the yellow soil. The variations of E_4/E_6 ratios of HAs along the soil pro?les indicate the overall molecular sizes of HAs decreased downward along the soil pro?les.A/O–A ratios of HAs decreased downward along both the soil pro?les indicate that humi?cation processes decrease downward along both the soil pro?les. Leaching of SOM shows signi?cant effects on the distribution and characteristics of HAs in the yellow soil pro?le but the purplish soil pro?le, which is consistent with the higher hydrophobicity of HAs in purplish soils, shows that the distribution characteristics of SOM along the soil pro?les are a complex result of the combination of soil texture and characteristics of SOM itself. The remarkably different sand contents are concluded tentatively as one of reasons to the different distributions and dynamics of HAs along the soil pro?les,however, to profoundly understand the evolution and transport of SOM along soil pro?les needs more researches.

Interaction of Ca^(2+) and soil humic acid characterized by a joint experimental platform of potentiometric titration, UV–visible spectroscopy, and fluorescence spectroscopy

Rocky desertification has become a major environmental issue in the karst region of southwestern China.Karst rocky desertification was more severe in regions of limestone soil than in adjacent regions of other soils,despite the relatively higher soil organic matter(SOM)content in limestone soil.The underlying mechanism remains ambiguous.We speculated that the geochemical characteristics of limestone soils in the karst region plays an essential role,especially the high calcium content of limestone soil.To test this hypothesis,we collected limestone soil samples from a limestone soil profile in the southwestern China karst region and extracted humic acid(HA)from these limestone soil samples.We investigated the interaction of Ca^(2+)and three HA samples on a joint experimental platform,which consists of an automatic potentiometric titrator,a UV–visible spectrometer,and a Fluorescence spectrometer.HA solutions were titrated by Ca^(2+)and optical spectra of the HA solutions were monitored during the titration experiments.The results indicated that:(1)the interaction of Ca^(2+)and HA is a combined process of adsorption and complexation.Adsorption dominated the overall distribution behavior of Ca^(2+),which could be fit by Langmuir and Freundlich isotherm models.Complexation was distinguished only when the concentration of Ca2+is low;(2)the changes of UV–visible spectroscopy and excitation–emission matrix fluorescencespectroscopy spectra of HA samples when they were binding with Ca^(2+)implied the apparent molecular size and structure of HA became larger and more complex;(3)the combination of Ca^(2+)and HA plays an important role in the SOM preservation of limestone soils but the stability of the Ca–HA association was relatively weak.The present study draws attention to maintaining the relatively higher Ca^(2+)concentration in limestone soils in ecologic restoration attempts in karst regions.